Straight answers for 'The Resistance'

The last days of "the times of the Gentiles" will be met with a monolithic, universal church that uses political coercion to produce converts and adherents.

One of the final instruments Satan uses to complete his work in setting up a unified kingdom for the “last days” is music, the universal language.

Daniel 3-6 gives a narrative example of the features and chapter 3 deals specifically with the attempted institution of a universal religion by Nebuchadnezzar; something the Antichrist will do during the tribulation.

Nebuchadnezzar says in Daniel 3:15: “Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?”

Jordan explains, “Nebby institutes this image’s dedication by a religious worship service. He’s instituting a state religion and he uses music to do it. You see, he’s a picture of that coming willful king (the Antichrist) who will set himself up to defy God Almighty, creating an image and demanding people worship it . . .

“There are things in this passage that are highly instructive for today. Verse 2 says, ‘Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and th’e captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellers, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.’

“You read that and you get the idea he had everybody; he didn’t leave anybody out! It’s an amalgamation of state and religion together in one and he’s proclaiming himself as ‘the head of gold.’ He said, ‘I’ll not just be the head of gold in this image, I’ll be the whole image! I’ll be the whole she-bang!’

“In other words, it’s an enforced religion—‘If you don’t worship, we’re gonna get you; we’re gonna kill you!’ These people are determined there should be no lack of unity. Everybody is going to be together, worship together and agree together about this thing and there isn’t going to be any division. 

“That’s why the Apostle Paul says that if a man is an idolater—that is, if he bows down to icons and images and all that kind of stuff—even if he’s called a brother, you’re to disassociate yourself from that man. Why? Because that is connected with a system that will ruin you and the people under your influence. It’s Baal worship.

“People say, ‘Well, I believe the right doctrine but I’m just going to go along and not rock the boat.’ And they’re the types who will just bow down because the pressure’s on them to do just that.

“You know what the pressure of the religious system is? Don’t rock the boat. Like Chamberlain said, ‘Peace at any price.’ He gave away Europe. You know what it cost? It cost the blood of thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of innocent boys on the battlefield.

“What you better maintain at any price isn’t peace; it’s truth! But they say, ‘We don’t care what your doctrine is—just bow down.’ Conformity. Unity. ‘Be one with us. Go along.’

*****

When Daniel 3:8 reports, “Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews,” the phrase “accused the Jews” connects with Revelation 12:10 where John talks about Satan being “the accuser of the brethren.”

Jordan explains, “You see, God still had a faithful remnant even in Babylon who wouldn’t bow their knee to idols. If you go back to Exodus 20:1, you’ll see that God warned them not to do this kind of thing, and they learned the lesson of their history.”

Daniel 3:12-14 continues, “There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
[13] Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king.
[14] Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?”

“These Chaldeans come in and they begin to accuse Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego on political grounds for not obeying their religion, saying, ‘They don’t regard you, Nebby. They don’t serve your gods. They don’t go to your church. They don’t follow your orders.’

“You see, that’s what happens when you get church and state stuck together. You ever hear of anybody doing that?  It’s been going on for 2,000 years.

“The Council of Trent, in 1545, passed decrees that were binding in every country where the Roman church held sway and they said, ‘If you believe in justification through faith plus nothing, and you don’t believe in baptismal regeneration at the hands of Roman Catholic priests, or that the Apocrypha is part of the inspired Word of God, then you’re anathema. You’re accursed and the government has a right to murder you if you stand in public and say it.’

“And some of the most barbaric, butcherous, murderous acts that have ever been committed on the face of the earth happened as a result of that. The Counter-reformation,  the Valley of the Piedmont, the Spanish Inquisition—all those things went out under the authority and the sanction of the government to kill heretics and the heretics were simply Bible-believing Protestants.

“Did you know, folks, that the greatest minority in the world is an independent, Bible-believing Protestant? There’s all these groups—Hispanics, Blacks, Orientals—but do you know who the real minority is? The minority that doesn’t have ANY rights? It’s a bunch of saved, Bible-believing, Bible-preaching people, and if you don’t believe that, just hang around a little while longer, why don’t you!

“That’s what’s going to happen and that’s what these Chaldeans do, folks! They take them and accuse them on political grounds of not obeying religion. Now, you watch that go on and you’ll see that over and over and over in the world.”

*****

In Daniel 3: 16-18, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answer the king with, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
[17] If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
[18] But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

Jordan says, “Boy, you talk about putting a dude on the spot, man! Nebby says, ‘Look, guys, let’s be reasonable about this thing. You better think this thing over; I’m fixin’ to burn you! All you got to do is go out there and bow down! It ain’t no big thing! It won’t cost you any money! I mean, so what if you won’t believe; you got me between a rock and hard place, so just c’mon and be reasonable, will ya?!’

“But those three guys said, ‘Nebby, we don’t have to take conference; we’re not careful to answer you,’ meaning, ‘We’re not at all worried about this matter.’

“That word ‘careful’ there—that’s that word over in Luke 10:38 when Jesus tells Martha, ‘You’re full of care. You’re anxious, uptight and jittery; full of concern.’

“That’s like that verse over in Philippians 4 where Paul says, ‘Be careful for nothing.’ In Matthew 10:18, when Jesus says, ‘Don’t take any thought for it,’ it’s that same kind of idea.

“In other words, ‘We’re not mulling it over and getting all bent out of shape. We’re just going to give you a straight answer about the situation and we won’t have any problem with what’s going on here.’

“Now, you know something, folks, that’s a real rarity in life. They’re not in a sweat and they’re not going to be diplomatic—they’re just going to give a straight answer when they come up to a problem.

“Like the old song goes, ‘They wouldn’t bow, they wouldn’t bend and they wouldn’t burn.’ But see, they didn’t know that yet that they (wouldn’t die). They said, ‘The God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and if not—if He lets us burn up—hey, we’re not going to bow anyway! We’re just going to trust Him.’

“That’s a great example of a clear conscience and, you know, Believers need to cultivate that same attitude in their walk. If you’ve got a clear conscience, and you’re not trying to con people—you’re just trying to serve God and do what He wants you to do—

a clear, straight answer will be a habit with you.

Rejoicing in spread of malignant madness

Just like there are “the deep things of God,” there are also the deep things of the Adversary. John writes in Revelation 2:24, [24] But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.

“The depths of Satan is a doctrine, a teaching, a philosophy,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “Whereas ‘the deep things of God’ lead to our glory and, just as you and I are destined to share in the glorification of Jesus Christ throughout all the universe, the same thing is true in the reverse for those into ‘the deep things of the Adversary.’

“One of the most damning, most awful . . . one of the clearest, plainest, bottom line verses of degradation in the Bible that represents ‘exceeding sinful,’ is the last verse in Romans 1: ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’

“This is not a verse that gets a lot of play but it’s a verse that goes right down to the depths of sin and I suggest to you that, in human terms, the depths of sin demonstrate ‘the depths of Satan.’

“When it says, ‘Who knowing the judgment of God,’ don’t ever forget that. Every unsaved man, no matter how deep he goes in his rebellion and sin, and no matter how fast and hard he travels the road of degradation, he knows there’s a judgment.

“People say, ‘Well, how do you know that, preacher?’ I’ve dealt with them, but I don’t know it because of that; I know it because God said it.

“Every person who comes into this world knows two things: they know there’s a God and they know they’re going to face Him in judgment. They know His eternal power and godhead. God says He fixed it so they know that.

*****

“The end of Romans 1:32 says that ‘they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’ It’s enough to damn yourself but now you’re rejoicing in damning others with you. That’s the depths of sin. That’s how low-down sin can be.

“It starts out just condoning something. You then move to approving it, and then aiding and abetting it; helping it out. Then it won’t be long until you become its patron and you’re rejoicing in the sins of others. That’s the final step, the approval of sin in others. That positive satisfaction in the wrongdoing of others. That’s just malignant madness. That’s the depths of sin.

“It’s one thing to do it yourself and say, ‘It may damn me, but I’ll do it!’ but it’s something quite of a different color to say, ‘I’ll not only do it, I’ll rejoice in having other people do it with me!’

“You say, 'Where does that come from?!' Listen to me, there isn’t anything you ever saw anybody on this planet do that isn’t in your flesh to do also, because what caused them to do it, they got from Adam. And you got the same stuff they got from Adam; it’s called flesh.

“When Paul said, ‘In my flesh dwelleth NO good thing,’ you can say that. That old sin nature’s got a bent toward aestheticism and culture. It’s ‘the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and evil.’ It’s also got a bent toward lasciviousness, wantonness and evil. God doesn’t accept either one.

*****

“James 1:15 says, ‘Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ That’s what sin does. Sin is of a nature that it can never be satisfied. What it does is it becomes dead and then it just gets deader and deader and pretty soon it’s just death in the pot and it takes more to stimulate it and more to get it excited.

“It takes more jazz, more volume, more juice to get the stimulation the next time and it's, 'I’m hooked on the stimulation, but the more I stimulate it, the deader it gets dead,' and then you’ve got to go further and further.

“It starts out easy. The dirty jokes become the dirty story and pretty soon the dirty story becomes dirty pictures. First it’s just a magazine you can hide in the back of the closet and the next thing you know it’s the Triple X movies and the next you know, it isn’t pictures anymore; it’s illicit relationships.

“First it’s just a little dalliance but then it’s done over and over and now it’s constant fornication and pretty soon that isn’t enough because that gets satisfied and dead. That doesn’t titillate so now it begins to be deviancy and all the sexual perversion you see out there in the world today, whether it’s the homosexual perversion or pedophilia, bestiality, things that are just so . . . you know, you read about them and hear about them and say, ‘Say it ain’t so?! It just can’t be?!’

“How’d they get there? Nobody goes into wickedness like that except through a long, slow process of evil thinking, and the things that you tonight think are repulsive and that you could never do . . . if you start back over at the beginning of it you, too, could get there and the only way to avoid getting there is leave it alone to start with!

*****

“Let me show you a verse in Ezekiel that curdles my blood. I can’t fully grasp the heinous depths to which this thing goes and I’m glad I can’t. Paul said, ‘Be simple concerning evil and wise concerning that which is good.’

“I don’t want to know what this stuff is; I’m not interested. But I’ve had people sit with me, and I’ve had to deal with people who’ve been there, or somewhere close to it, and I’ve seen the hooks and the chains of sin holding onto a person’s soul in a way that I don’t want to be any part of.

“I’ve seen a little bit of what the verses say and I don’t want any more first-hand experience than what I’ve had, but I can tell you it’s a very sobering thing.

“In Ezekiel 29, Ezekiel goes from talking about ‘the king of Tyrus,’ the king of the north, to Pharaoh king of Egypt. And once again, just like in chapters 27 and 28, where he was talking about the king of Tyrus but was really talking about Satan (who the king of Tyrus represented), he does the same thing in Ezekiel 29-32.

“Ezekiel 29:2-3 says, [2] Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:
[3] Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

“Who is the great dragon? Satan. The prophecy goes on down and you come over to chapter 31:2-3. [2] Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
[3] Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

“What are we talking about there? Who was in the Garden of God? Who was in Eden? Same thing you’ve got in chapter 28. When Ezekiel talks about the ‘cedar in Lebanon,’ the trees, he’s talking about the angelic creatures; their different functions and things they carry on.

*****

“Prophetically, you’re out at the end time in the 70^th week of Daniel. You’re looking forward to destruction of the satanic policy of evil with the Second Advent of Christ. What culminates out there under the personage of the Antichrist, that ultimate form of the lie, began and was propagated among mankind in the Garden of Eden.

“Pharaoh was a part of that and along through history God puts in little things about it, about what’s ultimately going to happen, and he talks to Pharaoh here as though he was Satan out there, because it’s all the same program.

“Watch what happens out there. Verse 16 says, ‘I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.’

“That’s like Isaiah 14:9: [9] Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

“So he goes down to hell and they say, ‘This is the Antichrist; here he is,’ and you notice there’s some people who are going to be COMFORTED when that happens!

“In chapter 32 you have a picture of the battle associated with the Second Advent of Christ as He goes and destroys His enemies. Verse 31, speaking of Satan under the cover of Pharaoh, says, [31] Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.

“He’s going to see all these host who He’s gathered together; who have been DESTROYED by God’s judgment. He shall see them. He shall see all these people who have been damned and destroyed as they followed his program.

“Watch Verse 32: [32] For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

“Pharaoh’s going to look out there in hell and look at all those people who’ve been damned by following him and the verse says he’s going to be comforted in the damnation of all those multitudes.

“Remember Hosea 7:3? ‘They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.’ I remember all those verses like that where it says, ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, not only do them but rejoice in them that do them.’

“Not only does he go to hell under the wrath and judgment of God, but he looks out at the multitudes who’ve been damned by following him and says, ‘Wow, ain’t that wonderful.’

“There isn’t anybody down there that I know of that’s happy to see you come, but that verse says there’s going to be somebody one day. You know what that tells me? That tells me that hell and ‘the lake of fire’ is going to be the mad house of the universe; ‘the depths of Satan.’

“There’s that sadistic glee over the eternal damnation of others to the place that Satan himself would look out over the hordes of people that were damned for following him and rub his hands together and go, ‘Hee, hee, hee, hee,’ and have a good time over it.

“Folks, you don’t want to be a comfort to the devil. You don’t want to comfort him by seeing his plan work out in your life. You want to discomfort him, and the way you do that is you live under the wonderful administration of the wonderful grace of God. As Paul says, ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!’ That’s this wonderful wisdom and understanding that God afore prepared unto our glory.”

(new article tomorrow)

Coming attraction: horse-shaped locusts

On Monday's Martin Luther King Day holiday the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most sacred site in all of Islam, was dealing with a horrid locust invasion in which the insects "were seen all over in the focal point of the annual Muslim pilgrimage; municipal workers have swept the dead insects into piles and sprayed the walls and floors of the mosque as well as its sewage system and water drains," according to the website Sputniknews. References were made in various online articles to biblical-proportion curses.

While Moses smote Egypt with a plague of locusts, the prophesied plague of locusts found in the Book of Joel looks at something much broader than just bugs; it’s a pestilence in the land of Israel during the tribulation that will thoroughly decimate the land.

“These locusts that come out then are not physical locusts; they’re locusts in a spirit form,” explains Jordan. “I love in Leviticus where it talks about how a locust is clean if he’s a bald-headed locust. If you ever find a bald-headed locust, take a picture of it before you eat him, will you. I just want to see what that critter looks like.

“When Joel 1 refers to that devouring fire in verse 19-20, obviously there’s more involved. Revelation 9:3 says, ‘And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.’

“If you look down at verse 11, it reveals ‘they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.’

*****

“What did you learn in Proverbs that locusts don’t have? The literal insect doesn’t have a king. These locusts have a king, so they’re not the insect. Who is the king over them? He’s an angel. These are spirit-world creatures; fallen angelic creatures.

“They’re not going to attack the plant life in the earth like an insect locust would do; they’re going to attack PEOPLE.

“Verse 5 says, ‘And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.’

“If you’ve ever been stung by a scorpion, you know that’s not a pleasant experience. These things are going to inflict tremendous torment, ‘and in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ (Revelation 9:6)

“Now watch this: ‘And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

[8] And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

[9] And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.’

“The guy’s got a bulletproof vest plate on! These are wicked creatures, but obviously from the description of them, they are some type of degenerated demonic creatures.

“They’re a combination of horses, men, women, lions, bugs. They’ve got strange bodies, and if we’re studying the underworld and the things that happen with creatures after they die, you’d go to Isaiah 34 and Isaiah 66 and passages like that and you would see that what happens . . .

*****

“When sin corrupts, sin causes degeneration. Evolution’s got it backwards. Evolution says we started in the puddle and we’re heading for paradise. The Bible says you started in paradise and you’re heading for the puddle. The puddle for mankind turns out to be the ‘lake of fire.’

“In the lake of fire, it’s an absolute complete, total degeneration of the humanity that God gave you when He created man in His image. It’s not an uplifting, ‘up with people’ thing; it’s that sin kills you and when you see creatures in the underworld like that, oftentimes you see them in weird, degenerated forms and that’s part of the nature of what sin does over time.

“What you got a picture of is, in the tribulation, there’s going to be these literal swarms of locusts and they’re just going to decimate the land. And then these demonic locusts of Revelation 9 are going to come on the land as a nation whose teeth are as a lion and jaw teeth of a great lion, and they’re going to inflict this torment upon people who’ve lost everything they had to start with. When you think about that kind of devastation where men want to die and can’t . . .

*****

“Actor Robin Williams killed himself; hung himself on a closet door and he had all kind of personal problems. One of them was money problems. You and I think, ‘How can a guy who has a TV series who’s making $165,000 for a 30-minute show have money problems?’ Well, one way is his second wife divorced him and got $30 million and he’s trying to pay that off. That’s beyond my ability to relate.

“But when you’re that kind of a bipolar guy that he was, you torment yourself internally. Now, these guys are being tormented externally and internally to the place they want to die—they’re in such misery that they cry out to die and God won’t let them die.

“That’s the situation you’re getting described when Joel begins. It’s this total devastation that’s going to be brought on the land before Christ comes. Because when you finish this chapter, the next chapter you have the armies of God show up at the Second Advent and then in the third chapter, you have God going out and destroying all the Gentile nations that came against Israel.

“Joel is just one blast of destruction so that in the latter part of chapter 2, he can say, ‘By the way, there’s going to be a believing remnant that I’m going to save out of that,’ and so what he’s doing is demonstrating to Israel is how they can be delivered out of the devastation through the Messiah.

*****

“Verse 5 says, ‘Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.’

“In other words, the fifth course of judgment is coming. Joel is looking prophetically to the last phase of it. Verse 7 says, ‘He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.’

“You remember we studied Isaiah 5 the vineyard is a picture of the nation Israel? Israel is described as a vine tree and a fig tree. When you bark a tree, you kill it. You cut the bark off around it and it’s going to die.

“He says, ‘You drunkards, cry, weep, howl; you’re cut off.’ All of the luxuries you’ve had . . . . and you know we’ve talked to you about drinking and drunkenness in the Bible and it’s like that stuff we were studying in I Timothy 3 when Paul tells you the elders are not to be given to wine.

“The idea is if you need external stimulants to get through life, then you’re not dealing with life in any kind of a real sense because as soon as the external stimulants don’t work, you don’t have a path to deal with life.

“These guys here, He’s telling the drunkards they’re to wail because they’re going to lose all the things that we’re giving them cover.

“They’re not crying because they’re losing their basic necessities. He doesn’t say, ‘Cry because you don’t have clothes or food.’ They’ve lost that too; they’re crying because they don’t have the luxury of blinding their mind to it. There’s nothing to cover their misery.

*****

“Verse 9 says, ‘The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD's ministers, mourn.’

“When that stuff is cut off from the house of the lord, in Daniel 8 and 9, the Antichrist starts the daily sacrifice and he cuts it off in the midst of the week. So what you’re reading here is some stuff that’s looking toward this judgment that’s coming on Israel in the middle of the week.

“ It says ‘the priests mourn.’ Why would they mourn? Well, because the sacrifice and the meat offering and drink offering is cut off. How did the priests get their compensation?

“In Israel they were to tithe. But they didn’t tithe money; they tithed corn, wheat, figs, produce. They tithed cattle. You bring a sacrifice, you kill a bullock, and the priest got the meat to eat and that’s when the Bible talks about ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse.’

“They literally had a warehouse to store all these provisions so the priesthood could be financed. And so the priest is going to mourn because his income’s cut off.

*****

“Verses 10-11 say, ‘The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

[11] Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.’

“He says, ‘I’ve talked to the drunkards and I’ve talked to the people worshipping; let me tell you farmers something: howl, O ye vinedressers.’

“All of the ability to produce food and sustenance for the nation--that’s why the Antichrist says, ‘You take the mark of the beast or you can’t buy or sell.’

“Somebody says, ‘Well, why don’t we have a Victory Garden?’ Because the land’s been put in a place where it isn’t going to grow you a garden. That’s why they wind up fleeing to the wilderness where God then has to feed them with the manna.”

(new article tomorrow)